Samed Vezirzade

Samed Vezirzade (1954-24 March 2002) was an Azerbaijani organized crime boss and the leader of the "Oil Mafia" crime syndicate.

Biography
Samed Vezirzade was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union in 1954 to a prominent local family. He received a degree in petrochemical engineering from the University of Moscow in 1973, and he worked for the Azerneftegaz gas company as a surveyor. After the downfall of the USSR in 1991, Vezirzade used his family's connections and his role in Azerneftegaz to become one of the richest oil businessmen in the country, becoming the leader of the "Oil Mafia" organized crime syndicate. Vezirzade lived a reclusive life, and he was suspected of financing anti-West terrorist groups. Vezirzade supplied a group of terrorists with weapons for an airplane hijacking in Oman in 2002, and he attempted to purchase nuclear weapons from the Russian Army. However, the Rainbow counterterrorist team thwarted his plans with a series of operations, and he was killed during a raid on his compound in Azerbaijan.